March Exercise —day three— Morning flew away and my scheduled swim was on top of me before I knew it. College staffers were creating a stone perimeter in front of the pool building for what looked to become a flower bed around the sign. Seeing the men at work out of doors with gardening tools sent a low jolt of some unknown stimulant through my system that triggered preposterous musings about what might have been, had I chucked my day job years ago and become a landscaper. It brought to mind the words of my cousin Dan, when he informed me by email that he’d acquired rural acreage in Ohio: “I think the urges I’m having now were evident in your father when I was a kid, and my father and brother now. I don’t know why I so desperately want to have land that I control, and to provide food to my family and neighbors….but I do.” There is something profoundly misguided about my having had decades of access to one of the most tranquil of Kentucky’s natural havens and, so far, having squandered the opportunity to fulfill that same genetic compulsion. God help me.
Today’s sight bite— Hand-worn rakes sifting through clods of black soil —c-l-i-c-k— as landscapers prepare a new planter at the natatorium.
Tomorrow— An evening with compassionate friends . . .